1 



TO 



LETTER 



REV. G. W. MUSGRAVE, 

'BISHOP!" OF THE THIRD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE, 

BEING A 

REPLY 

TO HIS LATE WORK, ENTITLED 

'POLITY OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN THE 
UNITED STATES," &c. 



BY DAVID MEREDITH REESE, A. M., M. D. 

A LOCAL PREACHER IN SAID CHURCH. 



Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus MUS ! — Horace. 

Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, 
it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found 
even to fight against God.— Acts v. 38, 39. 



BALTIMORE: 

AR ;* iONG & BERRY AND ISAAC P. COOK. 

WOODS & CRANE, PRINTERS. 

1843. 




\W 



REPLY. 



Rev. G. W. Musgrave, 

"Bishop!" of the Third Presbyterian Church of Baltimore. 

Rev. Sir — In opening a correspondence with a gentleman so 
proudly eminent as the title "Bishop" would imply, and 
especially failing to prefix "Right Reverend" to my salutation, 
which by conventional usage appertains to the "order" of Episco- 
pacy, a double apology would seem to be in place, in view of 
your own peculiar affection for the title, and your habitual repe- 
tition of it in application to yourself. In dispensing with this 
formality, I therefore take occasion to say, that though not 
having the honor of a personal acquaintance with your reve- 
rence, I regard the Book you have lately published as an 
ample introduction; and I hold myself excused from recogniz- 
ing your Episcopal title by the official example of the Presby- 
terian Board of Publication, who in a corrected copy of your 
former pamphlet, which they have cut down into a "tract," have 
signally rebuked your pretensions by reducing you from a 
"Bishop" to a level with the other Pastors of your denomination. 

It does indeed pour contempt upon the title, when such a 
"weak brother," as you must be regarded in the judgment of 
charity, should take the liberty to wear it, even after the dis- 
approval of your ecclesiastical superiors and fathers in the 
ministry, evinced in their late act to which I have alluded. 
Still, ho wever, though you are self-styled a "Bishop," I have not 
heard of any one bearing the order legitimately, or sustaining 
the office conventionally, who has condescended to dispute your 
right to glorify yourself by wearing the mitre, at your pleasure. 

But, Rev. Sir, the object of my address, is not to question 
your pretensions to the Bishopric, though it will become my 
duty to show you that the book you have published demands a 
recantation of its calumnies, and a retraction of its slanderous 
accusations, if you would hope to regain the more unpretending 
titles either of a Christian or a gentleman. The style of my 
•exordium will convince you that your publication has forfeited 



my respect for you in either of these relations ; nor can 1 extend 
any courtesy to an "accuser of the brethren," though he be a 
"Bishop," who under the garb of sanctity awarded to a Christian 
profession, outrages candor and truth by so flagrant offences 
against both, as those of which I shall convict your book, and 
for which I shall here hold you responsible before the Christian 
community. 

And in the onset of this letter, Rev. Sir, I wish you distinctly 
to understand that my controversy is with yourself, not with the 
Presbyterian church, either in this city or elsewhere. With the 
pious ministers and people of that denomination, we are at peace ; 
and the mutual interchange of kind offices, and the reciprocal 
recognition of Christian character, are regarded by Methodists 
as both a duty and a privilege ; nor in what I shall be constrained 
to say, shall I intentionally exhibit any hostility to your denom- 
ination, or wound the feelings of any individual among its 
clergy or laity. 

The set purpose you betray to identify the Presbyterian 
church with your book, has been frustrated by authority, as I 
shall take occasion to show, by exposing the ingenious device 
you employ to make a contrary impression. 

On page 10 of your book, after alluding to your publication of 
two lectures on the Divine Decrees, in which you became the 
assailant of Methodism, by a gross and wanton attack upon our 
Polity, implicating the intelligence and integrity of our ministers 
and people, and which you most strangely and incongruously 
smuggle into these Doctrinal sermons, you append a note in the 
following words. 

urn A n edition of these Lectures has been more recently issued 
at Philadelphia by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, and 
copies may be had in this city at the store of the Presbyterian 
Tract Society." 

Now, Rev. Sir, this note, as is obvious to every reader, was 
intended to make the impression, that "these lectures," had been 
officially adopted by authority of the Presbyterian church, and 
with all their offensive matter had been issued as a tract by the 
Board of Publication. 

But what will your honest readers think of your veracity, 
Rev. Sir, when they learn that in the edition issued as a tract 
by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, "these lectures" have 
been expurgated, by authority, of every line and word which con- 
tained the offensive assault upon the Methodist polity, and of 
which complaint had been made ; and which is obviously 
equivalent to a disclaimer and repudiation of your libellous 
attack, that Board thus refusing to assume its responsibility 
even though endorsed with your name? The exposure of this 



artifice against your own denomination, notwithstanding this 
official act, and your attempt to implicate them in your unpro- 
voked and unjust assault upon the Methodists, by the insertion 
of the foregoing note, is a humiliating task, though my present 
duty demands it. It will prepare the reader for the subsequent 
impositions attempted to be practised in your war against Metho- 
dism, by similar "dishonorable means." 

That the whole subject may be before the reader, I here insert 
the offensive paragraphs as found in your own edition of your 
Lectures, p. 38, every line of which was expurgated by the 
Presbyterian Board of Publication, before they consented to issue 
those lectures in a tract. 

"With regard to the government and discipline of those 
who have so violently and wantonly assailed our Church, it 
would be easy to show, — that the origin of Methodistical 
episcopacy is perfectly ludicrous; — that the government and 
discipline of that sect are anti-republican and tyrannical ; — 
that the entire control of all church property by their clergy, 
amounting as it does to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and 
annually increasing, is both unjust to the people who 
contribute the funds, and dangerous in its tendency to 
public liberty ; — and that, notwithstanding their ungenerous 
and invidious comparisons, they are, indirectly, but substantially 
and really, better provided for, as to temporalities, 
than the clergy of other christian denominations.* 

"But, as I said, my object is not so much to expose the 
errors and faults of others, as to defend the doctrines of our 
venerable church; and therefore, for the present, I forbear. 
I am not fond of religious controversy; especially with any 
Evangelical Protestant denomination ; and would much rather 
live in peace with my neighbours, if I can do so without the 
sacrifice of christian principle, or a dereliction of public and 
official duty. If, however, they persist in misrepresenting our 
doctrines, and continue their efforts to impair our influence 
and usefulness, — we shall hold it to be our duty, however 
painful, to expose their errors both of Doctrine and of Govern- 
ment; and the brief intimations that we have just now given 
of these, may serve to show that we shall not be without 
materials for the work ! And if we should be forced into 
offensive operations, they may learn to their cost the wisdom 
of the adage — that ' those who live in glass houses, should not 
themselves throw stones' !" 

"* Those who desire to see the Government and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church fairly examined — and the positions which I have mentioned, irrefragably established 
by documentary proof, are referred to "Jlnnari's Difficulties of Jlrminian Methodism" 
letters 7 and 8j third edition. The work can be had at the book-store of Owen and Son, 
in Market street, a few doors east of Gay street." 



6 

As these extracts, Rev. Sir, contain the original and unpro- 
voked assault upon the Methodist Episcopal Church which you 
perpetrated more than a year since, accompanied by an insolent 
threat of "offensive operations," and an insulting boast that you 
had the "materials," to carry on a war against both our "Doc- 
trine and Government ;" it is superlatively ludicrous for you, 
after this, to pretend, as you do in your book, that you have been 
very "reluctantly forced into this offensive controversy," and 
even to prate about being "driven into the publication of your 
book in self-defence." It would be both more manly and more 
honest to confess the truth, that you were goaded to this attack 
upon the Methodists, by a sense of long continued and oft re- 
peated provocations from that denomination, which though 
wholly fanciful and imaginary, by being ever present in your 
thoughts, had become to you as real, as though they had a 
visible and tangible existence. The bad advisers, who seem to 
have surrounded you, are responsible for tampering with your 
morbid sensitiveness on this particular subject. For your own 
sake, Rev. Sir, I could wish that you had fallen into better 
hands. That you have been the victim of these morbid imagin- 
ings, and might have been preserved from your present "bad 
eminence," by better advisers, will be obvious as I proceed to 
notice the 

"ORIGIN OF THE BOOK." 

The origin of your recent work, as related by yourself, was on 
this wise : 

"One of their [Methodist] controversial tracts on the subject 
of election, was left on a Sabbath morning at my private resi- 
dence ! This I could not but consider as a personal insult , 
and as an impudent challenge to a defence of the doctrine as 
held by our church ! Accordingly I informed my people of 
what had taken place ! and announced my determination to 
commence on the following Sabbath an exposition and vindica- 
tion of our belief on the subject of the Divine Decrees," pp. 9 
and 10. 

Here, Rev. Sir, it will be apparent to every reader, that you 
distinctly avow the motive which has prompted you in this 
publication, viz. vindictive resentment for an imaginary "per- 
sonal insult," and an indignant response, to what you tortured 
into an "impudent challenge." That you could have been so 
easily thrown oif your guard by so trivial an occurrence, or 
"frightened from your propriety," by a "little tract," even though 
on the mooted doctrine of "election," is absolutely incredible, 
unless you had been previously suffering a morbid sensibility, 



which predisposed you to suspect a "gunpowder plot," when 
this single leaf from the tree of Methodism was left at your door. 
Hence your whole book exhibits the proof, that you have been 
enduring for a series of years, a vivid though delusive impression 
upon your imagination, that the Methodists were engaged in 
hostile demonstrations against you personally, against your 
diocese in Eutaw-st. and even against the Presbyterian church 
in the United States. It is thus alone, Rev. Sir, that your 
friends, however kindly disposed, can explain the explosion of 
wrath, envy and all uncharitableness into which you have been 
betrayed in your late publication. 

Do you soberly allege, Rev. Sir, that the Tract Society of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church had no right to issue a controversial 
tract on the subject of election, lest "Bishop" Musgrave should 
regard it a "personal insult and impudent challenge?" Pre- 
posterous as is this position, it is a fair inference from the first 
sentence in your book, which is no less silly than it is untrue. 

"For many years, and without the slightest provocation, the 
General Tract Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
under the care and control of the General Conference, have been 
issuing hostile and offensive publications against the Presby- 
terian Church." 

Now, Rev. Sir, you will forgive my abrupt contradiction of 
your reverence thus early, when I assure you that no tract has 
ever been issued by any authority in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, either against the Presbyterian church, or against any 
other evangelical denomination ; so that this, your first slander, 
and first sentence in your book, has not even the semblance of 
truth; though you affirm that this offence has been repeated 
"for many years." For your own sake I wish you had made a 
better beginning, although if you had, it would not have been a 
fair specimen of your volume ; and the reader may here award 
you more candor than discretion. But in the same paragraph, 
you charge upon the Tract Society and the General Conference, 
that the circulators of our tracts have Hampered with the mem- 
bers of your flocks and employed various dishonorable means to 
seduce them from the church of their fathers." 

This is a grievous matter truly, if true, but it strikes me, Rev, 
Sir, that you must regard the members of your flocks of very 
"easy virtue" if they could be "seduced" by the "tampering" of 
tract distributors ; and they must be estimated by yourself as 
indeed "weak brethren and sisters," which we do not regard 
them, if their "seduction from the church of their fathers," and 
also from their beloved friend and "Bishop!" is to be apprehend- 
ed by the "dishonorable means" you impute to the Methodists. 



8 

But the truth is, Rev. Sir, you have "taken counsel of your 
fears rather than your judgment, and "drawn upon your imagi- 
nation for your facts." Let me console your reverence, by the 
assurance that neither the Tract Society, General Conference nor 
any of our tract distributors, have ever before thought of "Bishop" 
Musgrave, nor his diocese in Eutaw street, much less has there 
been a wide-spread conspiracy throughout the whole heaven 
and earth of Methodism against you and your flock, for this 
would have been indeed 

"An ocean into tempest tost 

To waft a feather, or to drown a fly." 

Still, however, you tell us that all this conspiracy was "patiently 
borne," until the "personal insult and impudent challenge" were 
offered your reverence in the shape of "a tract on election left on 
a Sabbath morning ', at your private residence /" This deed of 
darkness was indeed too much I confess ! it was not only in- 
tolerable ! it was absolutely awful ! I do not marvel that you 
exclaim with pious horror ! "On the same day, I informed my 
people of what had taken place ! !" and you might fitly have 
apostrophized thus, "Ye that have tears ! prepare to shed them 
now I" I almost fancy I see you standing in the sacred desk on 
that Sabbath morning, announcing the catastrophe to your peo- 
ple ! Surely they must have been shocked at the astounding 
intelligence ! at least all of them who were not in the secret. 
Forgive me, Rev. Sir, but I shrewdly suspect that it was one of 
your own flock, whose anxiety to provoke from you a sermon on 
the Divine Decrees, which by your own confession, you had 
scrupulously avoided for eleven years, prompted him or her to 
give you a gentle hint by leaving the tract at your door, which 
by a strange "tempest in a teapot," you construed into a "per- 
sonal insult and impudent challenge." 

Let me assure you, Rev. Sir, that neither our Tract Society 
nor General Conference had any foreknowledge that their "tract 
on election" would ever find out "Bishop" Musgrave ! much 
less that it should have had the "impudence" and profanity to 
visit you "on a Sabbath morning." And if the Methodist 
Episcopal Church in the United States could only have fore- 
seen the "terrible tract-oration" to which that portentous event 
has given "origin," and being in the shape of so formidable a 
book, it would have been "discretion, the better part of valor," 
never to have "roused this lion from his den." But it is now 
too late to give this explanation, for the deed is done ! and we 
must endure as we may, the consequences of the misapprehen- 
sion into which your morbid sensitiveness has betrayed you. 



All we can now hope is, that for the future, all other tract dis- 
tributors may take warning by our fate, and not by any mishap 
allow any unlucky wight to leave a tract at your episcopal man- 
sion, even by mistake, especially on "the subject of election" 
which subject being settled by your sermons on the Divine. 
Decrees beyond all controversy, is henceforth contraband ! Of 
this "decree," let all tract distributors take notice and govern 
themselves accordingly ! 

"OCCASION OF THE BOOK." 

Having thus disposed of the origin of your work, we are next 
'instructed into the occasion of its publication. It seems that 
the "expurgated paragraphs" of your lectures already cited, hav- 
ing appeared in the edition of your lectures, published by your- 
self, were taken exception to at the time by a writer in the 
Clipper, one of the penny papers, calling himself "A Methodist." 
This you regarded almost as great an insult and challenge as 
that dreadful "tract on election," for it resulted in a controversy 
which is reprinted in your book, and the reader who will peruse 
it, will be amused at the tremor into which you are thrown by 
the anonymous writer, who dares to doubt your infallibility, and 
challenges you to the proof of your allegations against Metho- 
dism. And when he presumes to remind you that the Rev. Mr. 
Annan's book, the only authority which you seem then to have 
relied on, was unworthy of being found in a clergyman's library, 
you are absolutely shocked, and forthwith threaten a pamphlet, 
but subsequently issue a volume, exposing "the errors and false- 
hoods of Methodism." For these you seem to feel prodigious 
concern, so that on this topic you may be said to be "under 
exercise of mind." I trust after circulating your book, you will 
"begin to entertain a hope," even for these reprobate Methodists, 
which is more than their creed allows for yourself, except on 
condition of repentance. 

The origin and occasion of your publication being thus before 
the reader, I now proceed to examine your charges against 
Methodism, and for reasons which will be apparent, I hold you 
to the original terms of your allegations, and of which you pro- 
fess here to have furnished the "proof." These charges are 
stated in the "expurgated paragraphs" of your lectures already 
quoted, and are repeated on page 23 of your book, and to these 
the first four chapters of the volume are devoted. But lest you 
should accuse me of omitting to reply to every thing you have 
said, whether great or small, whether old or new, I shall take a 
brief notice of each of your chapters in order. 
2 



10 

I. " The origin of Methodist Episcopacy is perfectly ludicrous." 
On reading this accusation, every reader will suppose either 
that "Bishop" Musgrave knows something of the origin of our 
Episcopacy, which we do not know, he being better informed 
than the "illiterate Methodists," whether preachers or people ; or 
that he holds that to be "ludicrous," which we, for lack of his 
superior discernment, are inadequate to appreciate as it deserves. 
Truly, Rev. Sir, you must abound in self-complacency and 
ought to be a happy man in the belief that "wisdom will die 
with you." I can fancy that I hear you soliloquize thus : 
"surely Methodist Episcopacy must go down when my book 
comes out, exposing its ludicrous origin ! I dare not attempt to 
prove it unscriptural for then they might upset my own preten- 
sions by turning my weapons against my own title of 'Bishop.' 
I will therefore only call it 'ludicrous,' which signifies that it is 
in my opinion ridiculous, and these Methodists cannot endure 
that I should laugh at their Episcopacy, while they see that I 
am myself a 'Bishop' and speak ex cathedra" 

Well here comes the book, which is to enlighten the "illiterate 
Methodists" as to the origin of their Episcopacy, which their 
clergy and laity are presumed to be too ignorant to understand, 
or too illiterate to estimate, without "Bishop" Musgrave's in- 
structions ! And what proof, Rev. Sir, have you furnished in 
behalf of your ludicrous position except that Alexander McCaine 
says so ! It is true that you fortify his testimony with long 
extracts from Dr. Jennings' exposition, and this, with McCaine's 
History and Mystery, constitute the whole of your argument 
and proof. But do you suppose that the Methodists were not 
aware of all that had been said, by these gentlemen, to whose 
productions you have given a resurrection after so long a sleep ? 
Or is Bishop Musgrave so ignorant as to suppose that they have 
not been answered long ago, and must he be told that in Dr. 
Emory's "Defence of our Fathers" he may find the epitaph of 
his chosen witness and all his co-laborers ? Indeed, Rev. Sir, 
you have made up this chapter by the wholesale use of the 
scissors, a ready method of doing a large business in book making 
out of a small capital. But not a paragraph or sentence can I 
find here of your own, containing a single idea, argument or 
proof which has any claim to either novelty or originality. Our 
brethren of the Methodist Protestant church may possibly give 
you thanks for giving permanence to their fugitive publications, 
especially as one so proudly eminent as "Bishop" Musgrave 
endorses their old arguments by reprinting them without note 
or comment. They would appreciate your commendation more 
highly, however, if you would sink your title, for the name 



11 

"Bishop" as well as the thing, is their peculiar horror. They 
will think your assumption of the title almost as "spurious, sur- 
reptitious and ludicrous as even Methodist Episcopacy." 

II. " The government and discipline of that sect are anti- 
republican AND TYRANNICAL." 

When I first read this charge, Rev. Sir, conveyed in terms so 
significant, and paraded upon your page with so much pomp 
and circumstance, I was prepared to see some "monstrum hor- 
rendum," some "raw head and bloody bones" picture, which 
had never seen the light. Instead of which, however, we find 
nothing more formidable than a new edition of the numerous 
papers published in the "Mutual Rights" many years since, and 
answered through the "Itinerant" and other publications at the 
time. After copious extracts, taken bodily by consecutive pages 
from that periodical, we find a reprint of Dr. Schmucker's 
letters from a Gettysburg newspaper, in his controversy with 
Rev. Mr. Young, some years since, and then Rev. Mr. Evan's 
tract and catechism, &c. These are the sum total of the evi- 
dence you produce to sustain your heinous allegation, and on 
these alone you rest for proof that the system of Methodism is, 
"in its tendency, dangerous to public liberty and the free insti- 
tutions of the land !" 

Really, Rev. Sir, you do us honor overmuch, when you 
glorify Methodism by attributing to our system such tremendous 
power for weal or woe to the nation and the world. But the 
contrast ! yes ! the contrast !" which you next exhibit will revive 
the hopes of the universe. The gravity with which you make 
the announcement is marvellous, and your self-complacency 
almost ludicrous ! I cite a few passages, and commend them 
to the attention of statesmen in our own and other countries, as 
containing something "new under the sun," Solomon to the 
contrary notwithstanding. Hark ! 

"Allow me to call the attention of the reader, by way of con- 
trast , to the truly republican ! and liberal principles of the govern- 
ment and discipline of the Presbyterian church!" 

But the next sentence is rich ! 

"To the Presbyterians, under God, more than to any other 
people, the world owes whatever of civil or religious liberty it now 
-enjoys !" 

And the next ! Hear him ! it is perfectly unique ! 

"If any aristocratical or monarchal sect should ever attempt 
the destruction of public freedom ! the Presbyterians of this 
country will rally to a man around the standard of civil and re- 
ligious liberty!" 

The gist of these passages might be thus rendered by a free 
translation : 



12 

"Know all men, by these presents! that when the time shall 
arrive when the Methodist Episcopal church, that 'aristocratical 
and monarchal sect,' as I have shown them to be, shall 'at- 
tempt to destroy public freedom,' of which there is great danger, 
as I have proved by Alexander McCaine and the Mutual Rights; 
then, and in that event, let it be proclaimed, that the Presbyte- 
rian church, and especially the little diocese of Bishop Musgrave 
in Eutaw street, will rally to a man around the standard of civil 
and religious liberty, and the liberties of the people will be thus 
rescued from these 'anti-republican and tyrannical' Methodists ! 
by the interposition of that 'truly republican and liberal sect, 
the Presbyterians !' " 

Now, Rev. Sir, after this brief indulgence in rhapsody, let us 
just take a peep into one of your own authorities, Buck's Theo- 
logical Dictionary, under the article "Persecution," and for your 
edification I cite a brief fragment of the history of this "truly 
republican and liberal sect," the Presbyterians. It may serve 
to "stir up your pure mind by way of remembrance." 

"Nor were the Presbyterians, when their government came to 
be established in England, free from the charge of persecution, 
In 1645 an ordinance was published, subjecting all who preach- 
ed or wrote against the Presbyterian directory for public worship 
to a fine not exceeding fifty pounds ; and imprisonment for a 
year, for the third offence, in using the episcopal book of common 
prayer, even in a private family. In the following year the 
Presbyterians applied to Parliament, pressing them to' enforce 
uniformity in religion, and to extirpate popery, prelacy, heresy, 
sehism, &c. but their petition was rejected ; but in 1648 the 
Parliament, ruled by them, published an ordinance against here- 
sy, and determined that any person who maintained, published, 
or defended the following errors, should suffer death. These 
errors were, 1. Denying the being of a God. — 2. Denying his 
omnipresence, omniscience, &c. — 3. Denying the Trinity, in 
any way. — 4. Denying that Christ had two natures. — 5. Deny- 
ing the resurrection, the atonement, the Scriptures. In Charles 
the Second's reign, the Act of Uniformity passed, by which two 
thousand clergymen were deprived of their benefices. Then 
followed the Conventicle Act, and the Oxford Act, under which, 
it is said, eight thousand persons were imprisoned and reduced 
to want, and many to the grave. In this reign also, the Quakers 
were much persecuted, and numbers of them imprisoned." 

Here we learn how England bled under the hands of bigotry 
and persecution inflicted by your "truly republican and liberal 
sect," the Presbyterians, when their's was the established church. 
Forgive me for doubting whether our "aristocratical and mo- 



13 

narchal sect," the Methodists, would have been any more "anti- 
republican and tyrannical." 

Now you have almost provoked me, Rev. Sir, but I forbear, 
and will* only remind you that if I were to reprove you here as 
you deserve, I should be in danger of grieving good men of your 
denomination, who are no more to be blamed than they are for 
what your brethren the Congregationalists did in New England, 
or for the burning of Servetus at the instance of your great pro- 
genitor. I expressly exonerate the present race of Presbyterians 
from any participation in this spirit of persecution. 

But you must be as ignorant of the history of your own 
church, as you obviously are of Methodism, or you would never 
have exhibited this boasted contrast, and thus opened such a 
wide field for castigation. I shall content myself for the sake of 
others, with a few hints, which you will be able to understand. 
Who was it that held a civil and ecclesiastical despotism over 
New England, and whose "standing order," the "orthodox" 
clergy, ruled with a rod of iron down to 1816? Certainly not 
the Methodists ! 

What sect was that which sold the poor man's cow to pay the 
priest's tax? Certainly not the Methodists. 

Who arrested and fined the venerable Dr. Roberts, late of this 
city, when a Methodist Missionary in New England, for solemni- 
zing matrimony, within one of their priest's parishes ? Certain- 
ly not the Methodists. 

What sect was it, that whipped the Quakers, men and women — 
cut off their ears — banished them from Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut on pain of death — and under that tyrannical law, hang- 
ed four Quaker preachers, three men and one woman, for preach- 
ing the Christian perfection of faith and obedience, and so dis- 
turbing the peace of the elect who were at ease in Zion, or 
rather in Babel? Certainly not the Methodists, for our doctrine 
and practice have ever consistently taught that liberty of 
conscience and private judgment is every man's birth-right. 

Nay ! Rev. Sir, I challenge you to show in the whole history 
of Methodism, "anti-republican and tyrannical sect" though you 
call us, a single instance of persecution for conscience' sake, like 
those of which "Buck" convicts the Presbyterians ; and of which 
the history of New England furnishes the proof against your 
brother Calvinists when they had the power both civil and eccle- 
siastical, being the sect established by law. 

These reminiscences of veritable history, Rev. Sir, present a sad 
drawback to your Presbyterian boast of being a "truly republican 
and liberal sect!" and the contrast you attempt with those who 
you denounce as "anti-republican, tyrannical, aristocratical and 



14 

monarchal." It is in vain to say that it is not so now in New 
England, for we happen to know the reason why. After your 
brethren the Congregationalists had persecuted and trodden 
down the Quakers, Episcopalians and Baptists for so many years, 
these hated Methodists, for whom there was then no toleration, 
and is now no forgiveness, so marvellously increased, that uniting 
with the other oppressed denominations, they wrested from the 
Calvinists the civil power, by the political revolution of 1816, and 
thus emancipated all sects of religionists by an overthrow of 
Congregationalism and its intolerant despotism. 

And yet, Rev. Sir, you have the temerity to prate of "true 
republicanism and liberality" being the peculiar inheritance of 
your sect, and dare to contrast Methodism as tyranny personified, 
presuming no doubt that we were too ignorant, to know, or would 
be too forbearing to reveal these historical details. Remember 
the wisdom of the adage you so arrogantly commend to us ; 
viz. "Those who live in glass houses, should never throw 
stones." 

III. "The entire control of all church property by their clergy, 
amounting as it does to hundreds of thousands of dollars, and 
annually increasing, is both unjust to the people who con- 
tribute the funds, and dangerous in its tendency to public 

LIBERTY." 

It is my duty, Rev. Sir, to call the attention of the reader at 
this point to a quibble, which is really unworthy of you, and 
one of which a "Bishop" ought to be ashamed. I allude to the 
title of this third chapter, "Clerical control op church 
property," which you unaccountably substitute for "the entire 
control of all church property by the clergy." If you had 
frankly confessed in your book, that your original allegation of 
"entire control" could not be proved, and that all the control 
of our church property which can be alleged in truth, is a mere 
clerical or pastoral control, you would have pursued a manly 
and honest course, and I would have taken pleasure in ascribing 
such an act to magnanimity and discretion, qualities becoming 
in a "Bishop," but of the absence of which your book furnishes 
sad evidence, as in this example. 

You record with your own hand an admission, in the first 
page of this chapter, that our ministry "have not the power to 
dispose of church property, or appropriate the proceeds to their 
private and personal use," which in itself proves that you knew 
that your charge of " entire control" was unfounded, and yet 
instead of retracting the injurious allegation, you clandestinely 
change the issue by adopting the terms "clerical control." 

You quote Webster's definition of "control," but you are 
careful not to cite his definition of "entire" as this lexicographer 



15 

would have taught you that this adjective qualifies the noun to 
which it is applied in a sense which admits of no limitation. 
This was exactly what you intended in your accusation as is 
proved by your naming the monetary value of the property, and 
thence inferring "injustice to the people, and danger to public 
liberty," neither of which can be predicated of "clerical" or 
pastoral "control." 

The language of the "deed of settlement" which you quote 
in your book and labor to mystify, explicitly defines the only 
control our ministry have of any of the churches, in the follow- 
ing words, viz. 

"To preach and expound God's holy word, and to execute the 
Discipline of the church, and to administer the sacraments 
therein, according to the true meaning and purport of our 
deed of settlement." 

This is the "clerical" or pastoral control which was never 
denied or concealed, and to show how strictly limited is all the 
control possessed by our clergy, I take occasion here to record, 
that our ministers are not at liberty to invite a clergyman of any 
other denomination to occupy our pulpits, even in ministerial 
exchange, except the consent of the Trustees be first had and 
obtained, and these Trustees are invariably laymen. You, Rev. 
Sir, I am aware, knew when writing your book, that the "entire 
control" you had alleged, was thus contradicted by every docu- 
ment you was obliged to quote, and I only dwell upon it that 
the reader may see your Jesuitism, in still making a show of 
special pleading and casuistry to avoid the concession which 
even truth demanded. 

Your insolent demand for the publication of the deeds of our 
church property in extenso, betrays an ignorance which, if you 
were not a "Bishop," we might expect could only be found in 
an "illiterate circuit rider." Let me enlighten you, Rev. Sir, 
by informing you that your reverence may find these deeds on 
record in every clerk's office, in every county of every state in 
the union, open to public inspection, and furnishing so many 
thousands of witnesses, all of which are so many standing 
records that the author of "Bishop" Musgrave's book is a wilful 
retailer of the scandalous libel, that "the entire control of our 
church property is in the clergy." And now if the Presbytery 
to which you belong, have any ecclesiastical discipline to punish 
slander and defamation against an entire christian denomination ; 
they are authorised to consider this in the light of a public accu- 
sation, your book containing the specifications, every Methodist 
being a prosecutor, and every county court furnishing the proof. 

But failing to make out your case against our clergy, in 
respect either to the meeting houses or parsonages, you next 



16 

stumble upon our chartered fund, and this, though for the bene- 
fit of the clergy, is under the control of laymen, so that you are 
still no nearer your object than before. And as to the flourish 
you make about our Book Concern, you ought to have known 
that this is the bona fide property of the clergy, and not church 
property in any sense, which can alienate its control from those 
to whom it belongs, so that you blunder on to the end of the 
chapter without being able to find any kind of church property 
which is under the "entire control" of the clergy. There is none 
such in existence, Rev. Sir, and this is the only reason you fail to 
find it, for your search has been as thorough as you could have 
made into our affairs, if you had been inquisitor general, with 
power to send for persons and papers, and even then the result 
would have been the same. The only difference is that if a 
popish inquisitor had made such diligent inquiry, and without 
finding any shadow of proof, if he were honest, and there have 
been instances of such honesty, he would have reported the 
truth, and relieved the accused from the suspicion. But you, 
Rev. Sir, have .the honor of proving that a Protestant Jesuit, 
after failing to find any kind of evidence of the accusation he 
has recklessly made, leaves the accused not only without 
acquittal, but labors to make it apparent that if the clergy do not 
have the "entire control" which they deny, still they have the 
pastoral control, which he calls clerical, which is almost as bad. 
You remind one of the jury who, in the case of a man indicted for 
stealing a horse, rendered a verdict of wilful murder. The rea- 
son they assigned for it was that they could find no evidence of 
the crime charged, but they thought he ought to be hanged any 
how. So, Rev. Sir, having prejudged Methodism to be false 
and evil, you fore-ordain that it shall be condemned any how. 
The reader will appreciate your whole course, by reading this 
chapter in your book. 

And yet this Book Concern, which is controlled by the 
clergy for the same reason that you, Rev. Sir, control any pro- 
perty which is strictly your own, and the profits of which are 
annually distributed among the superannuated preachers, the 
widows and orphans of deceased preachers, &c. seems to be an 
object of your godly jealousy, and pious horror, and you say, it 
"may hereafter become a tremendous curse both to the church 
and to the world !" I suppose, that the "awful tract on election 
left at your door on a Sabbath morning," and which was the 
"origin" of your book, was printed at this Book Concern, and I 
cannot marvel at your alarm, which might otherwise seem 
almost as "ludicrous" as "Methodist Episcopacy." You express, 
it is true, very religious apprehensions lest the control of the 
Book Concern should secularize the minds of our ministry and 



17 

divert them from their special work. But you forget that to 
"drive away all erroneous and false doctrines, contrary to God's 
word," both by the pulpit and the press, and by the same 
agencies to "spread scriptural holiness through the earth," consti- 
tute their special calling, and this dreaded Book Concern is one 
of the instrumentalities they are employing for these purposes. 

Having thus disposed of all you say in this chapter, I must 
be excused from alluding to the standing witnesses you call 
up on every occasion, Alexander McCaine, Dr. Schmucker, 
and the Mutual Rights, for these have all been disposed of so 
many years since, that your attempt to galvanize them into life 
can only provoke a smile. Nor shall I at all criticise the con- 
trast between your policy and ours in this regard, for as we 
manage our own internal affairs in our own way, I should 
esteem it impertinent to interfere with yours. And I take occa- 
sion to remind you that Methodists will regard it as an insult to 
their understandings for even "Bishop" Musgrave to admonish 
them on these subjects. They consider themselves capable of 
discovering any "injustice" perpetrated against them, and suffi- 
ciently enlightened to descry any "danger to their liberties" 
without your aid ; and believe me, Rev. Sir, our people feel 
naught but contempt for your officious homilies or their author. 

IV. "Their clergy are indirectly but substantially and really 

BETTER PROVIDED FOR AS TO TEMPORALITIES, than the clergy 

of other Christian denominations." 

The point of this charge, as urged by yourself, is, that we 
have represented the fact to be otherwise, and are hence guilty 
of deception and falsehood, while at the same time we do injus- 
tice to other denominations. 

If the allegation were true, abstractly, it would be honorable 
to our system, and the attempt to disparage us because of the 
superiority of our plans for "ministerial support," could only be 
prompted by a little soul. But when it is a fabrication , not only 
without evidence, but in the face of evidence, and when it is al- 
leged, that by "ungenerous and invidious comparisons," our min- 
istry have concealed or falsified the facts, our accuser betrays de- 
pravity as well as imbecility, and deserves rebuke and exposure. 

I now proceed to the humiliating task of convicting you, by 
positive testimony, of having substituted a fiction of your own 
brain, for sober truth, and as the flagrant guilt of this act is 
apparent, I abstain from giving any epithet, and leave that to 
the reader. That you intended to deceive the public and wil- 
fully slander the Methodists, it is unnecessary for me to say ; 
your statements, tables of figures, &c. will speak for themselves. 
With your motives I have nothing to do, but your book is public 
property, and you will be held to your responsibility, now that 
3 



18 

you have chosen thus officiously to meddle with the concerns 
of your neighbors. 

I begin with the affirmation you make, on page 145, which it 
is unnecessary for me to call by the offensive name of falsehood, 
it will serve my purpose to be content with proving it such. 

You here assert as the basis of your subsequent calculations : 

4 <The Pastor of the Light-st. Methodist Episcopal Church, for 
1842, received a salary of tivelve hundred dollars, exclusive of 
house rent!" 

Now, Rev. Sir, I neither know nor care upon what authority 
you make this statement, nor whether you were purposely de- 
ceived, nor whether you deceived yourself. Your assertion was 
not true at the time named, nor is it true now. The salary of 
the present pastor of that church is no more than $800, and that 
of his predecessor was only $850, exclusive of house rent, as 
the following document will show. 

This is to certify that I was the preacher in charge, stationed 
at the Light-st. church in the year 1842, and that the whole 
amount of my salary was eight hundred and fifty dollars ; in- 
cluding "allowance," table expenses, fuel, and every thing else, 
except the privilege of occupying the parsonage belonging to the 
church, free of rent; and that this was all I received will appear 
by reference to the Stewards' books. JOB GUEST. 

Bait. June 29th, 1843. 

I suppose your reverence will concede that this is plain deal- 
ing, now that we come to tangible matters found in your book. 
And I now call your attention, Rev. Sir, to the fact, that the only 
fault in what you say on this whole subject, is neither more nor 
less than this, it is not true. Still, however, your end is better 
answered than if what you say was true ; indeed you knew very 
well that the truth would not have answered your purpose at 
all, as I shall conclusively prove. Hence you make this fictitious 
salary, which is only $350 beyond the truth, the basis of a series 
of calculations and comparisons which are all necessarily as false 
as is this starting point of them all. 

The object at which you are aiming is distinctly stated by 
yourself in these words, "The salary of the Methodist clergy is 
greater than that of the clergy of other denominations," par- 
ticularly those of your own church. This same statement you 
repeat in a great variety of forms, and with great frequency. 
And now, Rev. Sir, to prove beyond a peradventure, that with 
this object in view, the truth would not bear to be told, I have 
only to state the case hypothetically. 

Let us suppose that you had told the single truth, that the 






19 

Pastor of the Light-st. church, in 1842, received no more than 
$850, exclusive of house rent, as his whole salary, including 
"allowance," table expenses, fuel, (fee. he having a wife and 
family to support ; and needing, as you say, $200 extra, to pro- 
vide for clerical visitors. He may need this item, Rev. Sir, but 
including all his needs, he received no more than $850. 

Now let us suppose you had once more told the truth, that the 
ministers of other denominations, your own among them, are 
receiving from $2000 to $3000 per annum, exclusive of house 
rent! and then what would become of your assertion, so often 
made, that "the salaries of our clergy are greater than those 
of the clergy of other denominations ?" and that they are '-'•better 
provided for as to temporalities?" 

These hypothecated sentences demonstrate that the truth would 
have utterly failed you, and hence you had the most pressing 
necessity for concealment and mystification, and in the emer- 
gency you were driven to the misrepresentation of facts, which 
1 here expose, and upon the ethics of which, I hope your Pres- 
bytery will report for the sake of your conscience. 

Truly, Rev. Sir, it would never do for you to record the 
truth that the Methodist preacher at Light-st. church received a 
less salary than you did yourself, for this ivould have spoiled your 
book! What then could you do when the facts of the case were 
so stubborn 9 for you are obliged to admit that your own salary, 
as a single man! is $1200, and has been $1500! 

But you find it necessary, Rev. Sir, to conceal the fact, that if 
you, as a single ma?i, were a Methodist preacher, and stationed in 
any of our churches in this city, the whole amount of your salary 
would be but $100, exclusive of the estimate for your boarding, 
which has never exceeded $200, making $300 as its total amount. 
That there are several examples of this kind in Baltimore, is 
another fact equally well known to you, as I can prove when 
you deny it. And yet, while your own salary is $1200, though 
a single man, you still persist that our clergy are ^better provided 
for," and "receive larger salaries" than others. Your friends 
will blush for you every time they see you in the pulpit, or out 
of it, until you retract this preposterous and gratuitous calumny. 

I can anticipate your intended defence in the event of your 
conviction of this gross exaggeration, by pleading that you were 
so informed by somebody who is nameless. This may be so, or 
it may not, but 1 have the testimony of "A Methodist," and also 
of the "gentleman" to whom he referred you, that neither of 
them gave you any such information, and moreover that your 
reference to them on this particular subject, is wholly unauthor- 
ized. They are the only persons to whom you profess to have 
applied, and they fail you ! though with more charity than I can 



20 

command, they are willing to ascribe your unauthorized allusion 
to them, to your oblivious memory. Certain I am, Rev. Sir, 
that none but an enemy would have so egregiously slandered 
us ; unless indeed some wag took advantage of your avowed 
character as a "busy body in other men's matters," and purpose- 
ly misled you, rightly judging that it would be more acceptable 
than the truth. But Christian ministers, Rev. Sir, and especially 
a "bishop," should never state as a fact what they do not know 
to be such; and when they do, if it turns out to be a fable, the 
forfeiture of their character is the penalty. 

But your "probabilities" are still more distant from the truth 
than your facts. The average salary of a Methodist preacher 
upon the circuits, you state at $664 66 with amazing accuracy ! 
while this sum is more than one such preacher in a hundred 
has ever received, even with a family. While the average in 
cities, you give at $976, which is quite as wide of the truth, for 
in the city of Baltimore, the average is very far below that sum, 
and our pastors are as well provided for as they are any where 
by the Methodists. But my limits forbid me to pursue any 
further details on this point. 

I am aware, that you may allege mistake in these several 
items, and those who can, may admit the plea. I am obliged 
however, Rev. Sir, to deprive you of this pretext in my next 
topic of remark, for here we have the proof of design. 

On page 142, you affirm that "the preachers themselves 
fix the amount of the annual 'allowance' to themselves, their 
wives and children, without consulting the people, and 
you then complain that by 'clerical legislation,' they have, from 
time to time, increased this amount according to their own 
sovereign pleasure!" 

But why, Rev. Sir, did you not record the facts, which would 
at once annihilate the scandalous insinuation which this sentence 
contains ? This technical "allowance" of which you speak was 
originally $64 per annum, which was afterwards increased to 
$80, and with the alarming "increase from time to time," which 
you depict as so frightful, the allowance itself has never exceed- 
ed its present enormous amount of $100 per annum ! which is 
the whole salary of every single man in our ministry exclusive 
of his boarding if stationed in cities ; and if on circuits, his bare 
support among the people. And yet with the perfect knowledge 
of these facts, you substitute the sentence I have quoted, by 
which, with the aid of capitals and notes of admiration, you suc- 
ceed in misleading the public. Your reason for this course is 
obvious, for had you told the truth, you would have proved that 
your own allowance quadruples that of any single man ; and far 
exceeds that of any Methodist minister in the Baltimore Con- 



21 

ference, however large his family ! You thus afford demonstra- 
tion here, that even '-figures" are not to be relied on in the hands 
of a Protestant Jesuit. 

But, Rev. Sir, I am not yet done with your flagrant perver- 
sions of the facts in reference to this "allowance," of the "in-- 
crease" of which, by "the preachers themselves, without consult- 
ing the people," you make such a monstrous enormity. The 
largest family of a preacher among us, cannot by possibility 
receive much more than $ 300 per annum as their allowance. 
For at the present highest sum to which it has ever been 
"increased" a married preacher is "allowed" % 100 for himself, 
$ 100 for his wife, $ 16 for each of his children below 7 years, 
and $24 for each of them above 7 and under 14 years of age. 
Hence a preacher who has 7 children under 14, four of whom 
being under 7 years of age, would have an annual allowance of 
$ 336 ! For married preachers, in addition, an estimating com- 
mittee of laymen appropriate a sum sufficient in their opinion to 
provide table expenses, fuel, &c. which is regulated proportion- 
ably to the size of the family. The amount of this estimate, 
being added to the "allowance" provided in the Discipline, is 
the aggregate salary which the stewards are expected to raise. 
I give you these items, Rev. Sir, that the enormity of your 
offence against truth and justice, may be more fully in view to 
yourself and the reader. 

Your Jesuitism, however, is not yet fully exposed, for on the 
next page, you attempt to show that "house rent, furniture, fuel, 
and table expenses," are included in the "allowance," fixed "by 
the preachers themselves, ivithout consulting the people ;" while 
you knew, as your book elsewhere proves, that these "items," as 
you significantly call them, are fixed by the people themselves, 
without consulting the preachers! Indeed on page 81 you state, 
that "the stewards estimate the table expenses, &c, of the 
preachers," and then you make a lamentable outcry about the 
preachers nominating the stewards to the Quarterly Conference, 
# body made up chiefly of lay members, and who elect these 
officers on such nomination. But you blunder, Rev. Sir, as sadly 
here, as when you represent the preachers themselves to fix the 
estimate for table expenses, fuel, &c, for the stewards have no 
more to do with making this estimate than the preachers, and 
neither of them have any more share in it as such, than "Bishop" 
Musgrave himself. By your own extracts from the Discipline 
found in your book, it is shown that a committee of lay members, 
appointed by a body composed chiefly of lay members, is chosen 
annually to make the estimate according to their own judgment, 
in which they cannot be controlled by either preachers or 
stewards. The latter board are directed to pay the estimate 



22 

thus made by the committee, if they can collect a sufficient 
amount by class and quarterly collections, over and above the 
"allowance," which in multiplied examples they fail to do. In 
this case, the preacher can only report his deficiency to Con- 
ference, and receive the pittance which may there fall to his 
share, and which is ordinarily but a trifling per centage on the 
amount of his deficit. 

After dwelling upon the scanty provisions of the Discipline 
for the support of superannuated preachers, the widows and 
orphans of deceased preachers, &c, in a strain of hyperbole, 
which apart from its heartless inhumanity, perverts the facts in 
the case, you wind up with the following startling declaration : 

"We confidently affirm, that there is no body of clergy in this 
country who receive while living so ample a support ! or whose 
families after their decease are so liberally provided for ! !" 

Now, Rev. Sir, I might leave the reader with the facts before 
him as here exhibited, to characterize this affirmation as it 
deserves. It is not becoming in me to call a "Bishop" hard 
names, but I content myself with proving that you deserve them. 
I envy not the head or the heart of the man who could believe 
you after this statement, even if you spoke the truth. 

In respect to the living preachers, Rev. Sir, I have already 
shown that no minister of our church in Baltimore, even with a 
family, receives a salary equal to that of "Bishop" Musgrave, he 
being a single man! Indeed your own salary contradicts every 
thing you say on this subject, although yours is the third Pres- 
byterian church in Baltimore, in more senses than one. You 
confess that your salary has gone up from % 800 to $ 1500, and 
that during twelve years it has averaged $1033 33 precisely ! This 
I "confidently affirm" to be more than any pastor in our church 
ever received in the United States, even with a family, during 
twelve successive years ; — and 'more than three times as much 
as any single man like yourself, ever had in our church even in 
the largest cities. And I need not refer you to the salaries of 
your brethren of your own denomination in this city, two of 
whom are so far beyond you in their salaries, as they are your 
superiors in meriting them. For you admit that in "some half 
dozen of the principal cities, Presbyterian ministers do in general 
receive larger salaries than the Methodist ministers stationed in 
the same places. And you know vastly more than you admit, 
that in the numerous cities where the salaries of Methodist pas- 
tors scarcely ever exceed $1000, their Presbyterian brethren have 
from $2000 to $4000, and so of other denominations. And yet 
you over and again repeat that our clergy have larger salaries, 



23 

and are "better provided for" than those of your own and other 
denominations. And here you affirm that "there is no body of 
clergy who receive while living so ample a support" as ours! 

Justice to the character of the self-denying men who labor in 
our itinerancy with so inadequate a support, has constrained me to 
make this humiliating exhibition, to defend them from the rank 
injustice and foul misrepresentations of your book. And if I were 
to institute the comparison between our circuit preachers and 
vour ministry, settled in the country, the shameful wrong you 
nave inflicted upon ihem, and upon the truth, would be still more 
apparent. 

I complain not, Rev. Sir, that any of your ministry are too 
well paid, and so far as my knowledge extends, your charges 
against our denomination for stigmatizing you for getting large 
salaries, is as fictitious as the rest of your allegations. I believe 
the general regret among our people is, that they cannot equal 
your denomination in providing for their ministers whom they 
regard equally worthy. 

But not content with misrepresenting the living, among our 
preachers, you assail their widows and orphans, when husbands 
and fathers are dead, by equal injustice ; for you add, "there is no 
body of clergy in this country whose families after their decease 
are so liberally provided for /*' 

I recite a few facts here, Rev. Sir, not because you do not 
know them, but because you do, and that others may see the 
enormity of your guilt in so grievously outraging the truth. 

The widow of a Methodist itinerant preacher, has a nominal 
claim on the Conference, during her widowhood, for one hundred 
dollars per annum, and no more! Her children in like manner, 
to the allowance of sixteen or twenty-four dollars annually, ac- 
cording to their ages until they are fourteen years old, when it 
ceases. When the receipts from all the sources you magnify 
and mystify, come into Conference, a rateable division is made 
among the claimants, and at the last Baltimore Conference, 
twenty-five per cent, only, was the amount of the dividend ; so that 
the widows received the pittance of twenty-five dollars ! and their 
orphan children four or six dollars each for the whole year! and 
in many of the Conferences a less dividend than this is often made. 
And yet you heartlessly and "confidently affirm," that they are 
"liberally provided for !" 

I owe it to truth, Rev. Sir, that I should here record the pain- 
ful fact, that the "ample support" of which you speak as received 
by our clergy, has always been so scanty, that after a life of toil 
in our itinerant ranks, when they become superannuated, or fall 
in the work ; multitudes of them have been unable to save enough 



24 

to give them a becoming interment, much less have they a surplus 
for their dependent families; and this, notwithstanding the per- 
sonal and domestic economy for which, as a body, they have been 
proverbial. Many of them have been obliged to expend their 
own patrimony, and often that of their wives y the annual expenses 
of their families being more than the "ample support' 7 which 
though found in your book, they never found anywhere else. 
Hence it is, that a large proportion of the widows and orphans of 
our deceased preachers, and a majority of our superannuated 
preachers have little or no dependence other than the pitiful 
"allowance," and of this they can too often obtain but a trifling 
pittance. I say nothing of your insulting their poverty by taunt- 
ing them with being "liberally provided for,'" but leave you to the 
comfort you can derive from it either living or dying. 

If our ministry were as "amply supported" while living as you 
have been for twelve years, they would not need to have their 
families "liberally provided for" by the church, after their decease. 
It is the deficient support of our clergy while living, which has 
led to the attempt in our system to provide for the continuance of 
the "allowance" merely to the widows and orphans of our de- 
ceased preachers, which has but partially succeeded. 

V. Financial measures, or mode of raising supplies. 

This is the title of your fifth chapter, in pursuance of your 
threat to "carry the war into Africa," after the "provoking chal- 
lenge" in a newspaper of this city had constrained you "very 
reluctantly" to enter upon this offensive controversy. And though 
your readers may marvel what you have to do with our domestic 
and internal affairs for sustaining our ecclesiastical system ; yet 
the wonder will cease when he finds you betraying the true 
motive of this officious intermeddling, by contrasting our system 
with that of the Presbyterian church, and pre-eminently in your 
diocese in Eutaw street, which is the pattern you would recom- 
mend for the whole universe. 

After a tirade against our class-meetings, utterly unworthy of 
notice, and a lamentation over the "tax"* imposed upon our people 
by weekly class collections, you attempt to argue in proof that 
free seats cost the members more than pewed seats, and you cite 
your own church in Eutaw street by way of illustration, where 
,.you proffer to rent pews very cheap! and where pew-holders 
would seem to be in demand! 

Let me enlighten you, Rev. Sir, into one fact, which seems 
never to have occurred to you, and it is this; the "illiterate" 
Methodists are perfectly aware that they must pay more to pro- 

* There is no such thing as a Ci tax v in our system, voluntaay contributions being re- 



25 

vide free seats, that "the poor may have the gospel preached to 
them," than to provide seats for themselves in pewed churches. 
Indeed many of them had learned long before your book was 
published that there were "pews to let" in your church, and that 
they were very cheap too; — but even this consideration has 
never tempted them to leave their free churches which cost them 
more, but where, on terms of perfect equality, "The rich and the 
poor meet together, the Lord being the Maker of them all." 

I doubt, Rev. Sir, whether you will find any success in prose- 
lyting Methodists, by offering seats in your pews at "six cents 
per week for each person, seventeen cents per week for a half 
pew, and thirty cents per week for a whole pew, where they can 
be 'comfortably accommodated,' " i. e. insured against a crowd. 
Not that we find fault with the price, for they are marvellously 
cheap, nor would we insinuate that at this price, any body pays 
more than they are worth ; but our people would rather pay the 
"tax" you warn us of in our "class meetings, love feasts," &c. 
which you say is ten cents a week upon an average. This is 
about as far from the truth as the rest of your book, but serves 
your purpose so much the better. 

Nevertheless, Rev. Sir, I confess that this mode of "tampering" 
with our people to "seduce" them from "the church of their 
fathers" is vastly more civil than abusing them as in the former 
chapters. But still I apprehend you will succeed no better by 
telling them on page 197 of your book, that in "the third 
Presbyterian church in Eutaw street, there are seventy-two 
pews ! which rent at a still lower " price, so that in many of 
these pews you inform us that "a family of three persons can 
have half a pew at between seven and eight cents per week ! 
and for each person less than three cents a week!! The 
capitals, italics and notes of admiration ! ! are yours, and on the 
same page, you sum up the amount of your proselyting proclama- 
tion, in this attractive announcement, viz. 

Few members of Methodist classes pay less than three cents a 
week ! and yet, for this amount any individual may obtain a 
rented seat in a Presbyterian church ! ! !" 

Surely, Rev. Sir, if the only reason people prefer the Metho- 
dist churches to your's, consisted in the amount of the "tax" which 
each of them may impose, your "list of prices" ought to put com- 
petition at defiance, for nobody can say that your pews are not 
cheap enough. And if your church in Eutaw street is not soon 
filled, it must be for some other and weightier reason, for no one 
can object to the price. Indeed I like your next paragraph vastly, 
for you benevolently say, that there are many poor people who 
pay three cents a weekin the Methodist churches, who if they 
would only "attend your church would be welcome to occupy 
seats literally and truly free /" 
4 



26 

In thus running your "opposition line," I would give you a 
hint which may be useful, and you might try the expedient in your 
next edition. If people will not take seats in your pews when 
offered so cheap, and will not take them even when free, there is 
no telling what effect it might have in raising a congregation, if 
you would try the experiment of paying them a small stipend of 
"three cents a week" for occupying these "vacant pews;" which 
sum you might spare out of the surplus of your salary, and even 
then have more than any Methodist pastor in Baltimore. 

After your gratuitous assumption that every Methodist pays on 
an average ten cents weekly in "class, love feast, and special 
collections," you calculate the "immense revenues" derived from 
these sources. And on page 199, you affirm that the whole 
of these collections, are "divided among our four thousand preach- 
ers, their widows and orphans!" This stupendous fiction you 
palm on your readers, though you knew perfectly well that 
"the love feast collections" are exclusively distributed among 
the thousands of the poor among the laity, by the officers 
of the church, who are laymen, and cannot by any possibility 
be received by our clergy. And as to the "special collections" 
these are for benevolent objects of various kinds and always 
specified, so that these, which in your estimates amount to 
little short of a million of dollars annually, in no case reach 
our ministers, but are managed exclusively by the laity. 

Now, Rev. Sir, it cannot be denied that you knew better when 
you made this sweeping charge against our ministry, and yet, if 
true, it would involve them in the guilt of wholesale fraud and 
robbery, and ought to cover them with infamy. And yet this is 
but a specimen of scores of similar outrages upon truth and de- 
cency found in your book, meriting the execration of all honest 
men, and will receive naught else from such men, in the ministry 
and membership of the Presbyterian church. 

But the pewed system seems to be the "god of your idolatry," 
for you declare, that the Methodists would generally adopt it if 
they could only "realise as much money as they at present do 
from their weekly class-meetings;" — and you allege our free seats 
to be a measure of policy to which we are prompted by the 
revenue they yield, which you say is larger than that derived from 
"the rented pews of the Presbyterian churches." Pray sir, what 
connection is there between our free seats for the public at large, 
and weekly class collections which are derived from communi- 
cants only ? So far from free seats being a source of revenue, 
they impose a heavy tax on our church, which you have yourself 
alluded to when you say that the free seat system costs the com- 
municants more than pewed seats, and which I have frankly con- 
ceded. Your absurd and inconsistent flourish on this subject is 
unworthy of refutation. 

You conclude this chapter by announcing the interesting intel- 



27 

iigence, that in your church in Eutaw street, a committee of your 
Trustees stand at your doors to conduct strangers to eligible 
seats, so that nobody need be afraid of entering because it is a 
pewed church. You then announce that if any family who are 
poor will consent "habitually to worship with you, they will, 
always be able to find vacant seats" a fact, which I am not dis- 
posed to doubt ; and that upon application, they may have "particu- 
lar pews gratuitously." Whether this novel mode of proselyting, 
in an octavo volume, will serve to raise a congregation to occupy 
your vacant pews, cheap as you offer them, remains to be seen. 
The poor, however, let me inform you, Rev. Sir, will not be 
favourably impressed with your offer of particular pews gratui- 
tously. They do not like to be thus labelled in the house of God, 
and this is one objection to your system. J regret to say that 
with our numerous churches and chapels in this city we are not 
able to promise vacant seats at all times to any, except to those 
who will attend in time to secure them, nor have we any "par- 
ticular seats" for the poor. Our churches, thus far in Baltimore, 
like the gospel we preach, are free to all, without money and with- 
out price. 

VI. Practical Methodism — its moral machinery, religious cha- 
racter and fruits. 

The foundation on which you build this chapter of your book is 
none other than the vulgar caricatures of Methodism, published in 
Dr. Green's periodical at Philadelphia some years since, by a 
writer who was nameless, for a reason which was afterwards dis- 
closed in the withering reply whi-ch was published at the time. 
1 forbear to say more, except that the author of those anonymous 
slanders, wrote the epitaph of the paper in which they appeared, 
which is long since defunct ; nor could Dr. Green's endorsement, 
and that of Bishop Musgrave's superadded, rescue their author 
from the infamy due to that anonymous slanderer. But even he, 
though concealing his name, did not descend to the scandalous 
libels of your book, for it has been left for "Bishop Musgrave 55 to 
find a still "lower deep;" for even he did not load the name of 
Mr. Wesley with the reviling epithets, into the use of which your 
envenomed hate has betrayed you, much less did he impute to our 
denomination the hypocrisy, dishonesty, deceit, and iniquity ; or 
disgrace himself by the railing and mockery of sacred things, 
which abound in your book. That you have thus "out-heroded 
Herod" in your foul abuse both of Mr. Wesley and the Methodists, 
I now proceed to show. 

On page 219, you record, "I am free to say, that such instances 
of gross and slanderous misrepresentation and defamation, go 
very, very far, to impair my confidence in Mr. Wesley's general 
sincerity and piety." And this, after quoting a sentence from his 
sermon on "Free Grace," which hyper-Calvinism can never 
forgive, and which can only be answered by railing abuse. 



28 

Again, on page 221, you not only impute to Mr. Wesley, 
"blasphemous caricatures and shameful misrepresentations,' , but 
on page 223, you characterize that venerable minister of Christ, 
as a "vulgar and malignant blasphemer /" I need not tell you 
how your vilification of this eminent scholar and divine will be 
estimated, even by the better informed and pious men in your 
own denomination, whose Christian candor has led to the just 
estimate of his piety and usefulness. You already know, that 
neither with this loathsome vituperation, nor in the other malig- 
nant railings of your volume, have your own brethren, even in 
Baltimore, either sympathy or fellowship. With them and simi- 
lar Christian ministers of the Presbyterian church, our ministry 
and people are on terms of mutual love, and the interchange of 
pulpits is reciprocally practised. And though you have heretofore 
occasionally introduced into your pulpit our ministers, to whom 
you then found it expedient to make a show of courtesy and 
recognition ; yet you have here betrayed the long pent up bigotry 
and uncharitableness, which you have until now concealed. That 
you will be henceforth appreciated in your true character, you 
will have ample evidence. 

But I now transcribe a few sentences, out of a great multitude 
of kindred character, to exhibit the spirit and temper, as well as 
the chosen language in which you vilify the Methodists. On 
page 230, you say : 

If religion consisted in wearing a broad brimmed hat, a plain 
bonnet, or a straight coat ; in assuming a sanctimonious counte- 
nance and air ; in using certain cant expressions ; in singing 
and praying vociferously, as if the Almighty were deaf; in 
shouting, clapping and dancing ; in crying Amen I Glory ! 
Hallelujah ! in swooning or laughing hysterically ; in dreams 
and visions, and fanatical impressions and impulses. If the 
religion of the God of decency and order consisted in pharisee- 
ism, fanaticism, confusion and uproar J then I grant it might 
be easy to prove that there is not only more of the \ power of 
godliness'* in the Methodist than in other churches, but very little, 
comparatively, among the other sects, except, perhaps, the Sha- 
kers, who, notwithstanding their denial of the Deity of Christ, 
fyc. can shout and shake and dance, with prodigious noise, 
l power^ and agility ! /" 

Now if this paragraph be not unblushing impiety and vulgar 
profanity, rivalling the infidel slang of Thomas Paine and Fanny 
Wright, I know not where it is to be found. But this is not its 
worst characteristic, for your reckless depravity has here alleged 
against the Methodists as a body, ministers and people, that they 
substitute for the "power of godliness," the senseless follies of 
Shakerism and similar excesses and extravagances; and you are 
thus self-convicted of a dilemma, upon the horns of which I leave 



29 

you ; you either knew better, or you did not ; if the former, you 
may yourself give to your conduct the appropriate epithet, for I 
scorn to write it ; and if the latter, then you are the victim of 
intellectual imbecility, and should be taken care of by your friends. 
I confess that, in candor and truth, I dare not say that the 
following sentences are to be ascribed to the latter source, for 
they exhibit such proof of malignant design, that charity itself 
has" not a mantle large enough to cover them, or conceal their 
moral deformity. On page 231, you say : 

"However great may be their (the Methodists) self-compla- 
cency, I can assure them that the pretensions of many^ of them 
to superior piety, are pretty well understood by the intelligent and 
observing, and particularly by many who have acquired some 
experience in their commercial dealings with such saints ! And 
if they have any doubts concerning their general reputation, let 
them go upon ° change] or enter the counting houses of any of 
our intelligent merchants, and try how far their straight coats, 
long faces, and cant express*07is ivill procure them credit ! Or 
if they allege that mere worldlings are no proper judges of the 
'life and power of Methodism] let them test the value of their 
loud amens, fyc. among the 'knowing ones' of their own brethren, 
and see how far they will trust them, without other security than 
that of their Methodistical profession //" 

In these foul and gratuitous imputations against the honor and 
honesty of the Methodists of Baltimore, for of these you profess 
to speak, see page 230, you are pleased to admit that they are 
not all equally "hypocritical and irreligious" yet you affirm all 
this of "multitudes ;" and your exceptions are only designed to 
bribe us into silence, by laying the "flattering unction to our 
souls," that you do not impeach any individual character or credit. 
But you need not hope thus to escape the responsibility of your 
heartless calumnies. 

Do you mean to say, Rev. Sir, that your Presbyterian "saints" 
obtain "credit" on "'change," or in commercial dealings, by giving 
the security of their Presbyterian "professions V* Do you think they 
will relish this insinuation? Or do you mean that the Methodists 
alone use their religion, in the market or on 'change, as a basis of 
credit ? The Methodist merchants of Baltimore, who share 
largely in the commercial dealings of the city, hurl back this vile 
slander, indignantly upon its author; and if you dared to make it 
against any of them individually, your clerical character would 
not give you impunity from the punishment of the misdemeanor, 
in our courts of justice. Their commercial character and credit 
as a body, are beyond the reach of the envenomed pen of 
"Bishop" Musgrave, they are "living epistles" of a "general repu- 
tation," which protects them from your puny sectarian assaults, 
though not acquired by vaunting their "Methodistical professions !" 



30 

Even the respectable members of your own church will feel a 
becoming humiliation, that you should have thus become the un- 
provoked assailant of men, whose integrity is known and appre- 
ciated by this whole community, and make haste to disclaim the 
suspicion of a participation with their pastor, in this deed of injus- 
tice and wrong. 

It will not do for you to prate of the exceptions' you make in 
your book, and disclaim any intention to impeach the intelligence 
and commercial integrity of the Methodist merchants of Balti- 
more as a class. I hold you to your own language, which I cite 
for your benefit. On page 230 you say : 

"In this city, (Baltimore,) as I have abundant evidence to know, 
nothing is more common than for many Methodists to boast of the 
superior piety of their own church, and at the same time to dis- 
parage that of other denominations." And then after the addi- 
tional grave slanders I have quoted against these Methodists in 
their commercial character, you account for it by alleging "false 
notions of the nature of true religion, and the very small degree 
of piety they themselves possess." See page 232, and on the 
next page you say, they (the Methodists) being "wholly destitute 
of piety themselves, nothing but the excitation of their natural 
sensibilities can make them conscious of any feeling in the house 
of God ! On another page you say, "there is no class of Pro- 
testant Christians so generally ignorant of the Bible, or of the 
connection and bearing of its solemn and eternal truths as the 
Methodists," and the reason you assign for this, is the "illiteracy 
of their preachers, and the little value they place upon evangelical 
truth as a means of conversion and sanctification." And after 
thus endorsing the foul calumnies of Dr. Green's nameless corres- 
pondent, you say, speaking of Baltimore Methodists, "The same 
Pharisaical, bigotted and proselyting spirit is constantly manifested 
by many of them in this city!" and the preceding sentence 
characterizes the "spirit" you thus impute, as a ''preposterous 
exhibition of avarice, hypocrisy , falsehood and impiety /" 

But it seems by the record you make on page 241, that some 
years since you were in the habit of occasionally inviting Metho- 
dist ministers to occupy your pulpit, and were sadly disappointed 
in your object, when you were not invited to preach for them in 
turn; for you say, you did wish to live on friendly terms with 
them. Now, Rev. " Sir, if the half you say of the Methodist 
ministers were true, or if you surmised it to be true, you com- 
mitted an outrage upon your people by inviting such men to 
preach for you. And if their people are what you represent them 
to be, you should be ashamed to confess a desire for Christian 
fellowship. I give you a few extracts for your edification, all 
referring to these Baltimore Methodists. After a sneering and 
vulgar tirade against camp meetings and revivals, which latter 
you call ^portable machines /" thus adopting the slang of pro- 
fligates and infidels, you say : 



31 

"I predicted after the delivery of my lectures on the Divine 
Decrees, and before their publication, that soon after their appear- 
ance in print, a Methodist revival (portable machine) might be 
expected in my immediate neighborhood — and so there was ! I 
now predict, that unless this exposure shall prevent it, soon after 
this work makes its appearance, we shall have another, perhaps 
more 'powerful,' to prove that all that is said concerning their 
polity, &c, is untrue, and that they are the very best Christians 
on earth !" 

Believe me, Rev. Sir, you have no claim to being either "a 
prophet or the son of a prophet," because you predicted the 
Methodist revival of which you sp'eak during the last year, nor 
had your lectures on the Divine Decrees, any thing more to do 
with its ''manufacture" than the publication of the Almanac for 
that year. With the exception of "A Methodist," whose notice 
in the Clipper was the "occasion" of your book, I do not believe 
that your published lectures were ever read by any of our denomi- 
nation here or elsewhere. And you may safely predict a "Metho- 
dist revival," whether you publish a book or not, for a succession 
of them have been vouchsafed to us thus far in our history, and 
unless the glory shall depart from us, revivals will still as ever, 
by the Divine blessing, accompany the means of grace, in pro- 
portion to the diligence and faith with which they are improved. 
Nor need you flatter yourself that"/Azs exposure will prevent it!' 9 
for after a becoming reply to your slanders, we shall pursue the 
even tenor of our way, as undisturbed by your book as though it 
had never been written, and as indifferent about its circulation as 
of the idle wind. For your own sake, and that of your people, 
many of whom will concur with us, we wish it had never been 
written, as we have hope that you will yourself devoutly wish 
when your own "exposure" shall be made in this community, 
and when you shall be brought to repentance, for which we 
sincerely pray, as we are taught to do for all, and especially for 
our enemies who "curse and despitefully use us, and say all 
manner of evil against us falsely" Believe me, Rev. Sir, this is 
our rejoicing, under the vituperations of your book. 

The exhibit you give of your own "diocese in Eutaw-st." is 
humiliating indeed, in contrast with "Methodism in the neighbor- 
hood," of which you complain. See page 2R6. You have been 
"Bishop" of that church for twelve years, and until you came there, 
nothing, or rather worse than nothing, as you say, was done. 
Indeed you seem "for several years to have laboured under great 
disadvantages," as the following sentence proves. "Many a 
time have I lectured on a week day evening to two or three 
persons, and preached on the Sabbath to fifteen or twenty indi- 
viduals !" I suppose it was about those days, that you invited 
the Methodist ministers to preach for you. But it seems that you 



32 

have been doing better of late, for "between thirty and forty have 
been added to the communion of the church every year !" How 
far these are "the fruits of yourown ministry," as you denominate 
them, would have been more apparent, if you had stated how 
these were added to the church, whether by letter from other 
Presbyterian churches, or on recent profession. You had reasons, 
no doubt, for silence on this point, and I shall waive so personal 
a subject, lest I be led to share in your spirit. You are careful 
to say, that you had no "revivals" or "new measures" or "Metho- 
distical machinery" but several "interesting seasons" during the 
twelve years which were so productive ! To exhibit your esti- 
mate of "revivals of religion," you scoff and mock at serious 
things after this sort on p. 234. "Feeling begets feeling, just as 
naturally as laughing begets laughter, and gaping begets gaping !" 
I do not envy you all the fellow feeling you will find among 
pious Presbyterians in this profane jest, nor indeed any where 
else except from those who have with you "taken the seat of the 
scornful, are standing in the way of sinners, or walking in the 
counsel of the ungodly." 

VII. New Measures for promoting Revivals of Religion. 

As this chapter is made up of the article on "New Measures," 
from the "Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review," which has 
reference to the clumsy imitation of "Methodistical machinery" 
among Presbyterians; and the insertion of two letters from Dr. 
►Sprague's work on revivals, of kindred character ; I deem it un- 
called for in the present critique upon your book, to give to these 
more than a passing notice. My own estimate of these docu- 
ments is, that in matter and spirit they constitute by far the most 
respectable portion of your volume, and of Methodism they say 
nothing which might not be expected, or which is unworthy of 
their authors as Presbyterian ministers, or degrading to them as 
men. Indeed the excesses and extravagances they condemn, 
deserved rebuke in many instances, and their error consists in 
identifying them with Methodism, to which they are no more 
analogous than the pretended miracles of the magicians in imi- 
tating those of Moses, — or the vain attempt of the sons of the 
Jewish high priest to cast out devils "in the name of Jesus whom 
Paul preached." One of your own blunders consists in fancying 
these new measures are "Methodistical," and then railing us be- 
cause some of your ministers have brought "strange fire to the 
altar of God." 

You tell us on page 286, that for eight years before you came 
to your present diocese in Eutaw street, that church had been 
"revived and re-revived" by these "new measures" until it was 
"nearly revived to death." You say "that church was like a 
good cow — milked but not fed" by these "revivalists." But pray, 
Rev. Sir, what had Methodism to do with the "high pressure 
system'* which you reprobate among Presbyterian ministers. 



33 

Our estimate of some of these "new measures" may not differ 
from your own. Do you hear of any Methodist church in your 
neighborhood being "revived to death?" though you say they 
"manufacture" a revival every time "Bishop" Musgrave publishes 
a book ! 

But so far from "shielding yourself from the horrible imputation 
of having deliberately borne false witness against your neighbor! !" 
as you have attempted, you have added "confirmation strong as 
Holy Writ." In what you call the proof of your original allega- 
tions, you have compiled all the stale calumnies of the enemies of 
Methodism, from pamphlets, newspapers, periodicals and other 
fugitive publications issued during many years, — and not content 
with republishing these, with your endorsement, though long since 
refuted, you have superadded new and unheard of accusations, 
involving the character not merely of the system of Methodism, 
but with inconsiderable exceptions, the moral and religious stand- 
ing of our entire denomination. You have thus constrained us 
either quietly to succumb to your libellous assaults, or to throw 
ourselves upon our individual and collective reputation before the 
community by a public reply. 

But you have not only attempted to instruct our brethren in 
the ministry and membership in what you call the "evils and 
falsehoods of Methodism," presuming that without your superior 
wisdom, we are incapable of discerning our ecclesiastical rights, 
or discovering the "despotism" of which we are the dupes ; but 
you have elaborated a tissue of fal&e and premeditated calumnies, 
such as never before were fabricated against any portion of the 
christian church. You have placed our entire denomination be- 
fore the American people as though we were a band of conspi- 
rators against the liberties of the nation ; — members of an aristo- 
cratical and tyrannical sect, the tendency of whose system is to 
destroy this fair fabric of American freedom ; in short, a vast 
and irresponsible company of traitors against human rights, en- 
dangering the peace and security- of the government of these 
United States! 

Such are the insane excesses to which your sectarian bigotry 
and vindictive rage against Methodism have betrayed you, that 
if I could for a moment believe that you were yourself the victim 
of the stupidity upon which you hope to operate by such ludicrous 
and harmless thunder ; I should regard you worthy rather of pity, 
than blame, and better entitled to commiseration than censure. 
But believing as I do, that your unbridled temper and unprovoked 
resentment have prompted this melancholy exhibition of frenzy, 
and that you have written and published it before your excited 
passions have allowed a sufficient pause for an estimate of its 
consequences upon yourself; I have treated you and your book, 
as I think both deserve. And, as a member of that communion 
which is the object of your bitter reviling, for many years, I thus 
5 



34 

publicly call on your Presbytery, to deal with you as with other 
wilful and deliberate offenders against the ninth commandment of 
the decalogue. And if you shall attempt to shelter yourself under 
your exposition of the Divine Decrees, and that your book is one 
of those events which has been "fore-ordained from all eternity," 
and that you are thence to receive impunity for its flagitious 
libels ; then you will recollect that the truth and plain dealing of 
this reply, is to be regarded as equally included in the Divine 
Decrees, and could neither be more or less than it is, a fearless 
exposure of ''Bishop Musgrave's" bill of abominations, and a 
defence of Methodism against his assaults. 

You have the assurance to solicit from your Methodist breth- 
ren a "temperate and candid review," and you say "this is our un- 
doubted right." We shall be our own judges as to our "undoubted 
rights," without your dictation, as also with the "temperance and 
candor" with which to repel your slanders. I have thus "with- 
stood you to the face, because you are to be blamed,' 5 according 
to the apostolic example. And though we recognize as "breth- 
ren" the other ministers of the Presbyterian church in this city 
and elsewhere, they having never forfeited our esteem and affec- 
tion by unbrotherly and unchristian railing, yet henceforth the 
Methodists everywhere will disclaim this relation to "Bishop" Mus- 
grave, until he brings forth fruits meet for repentance, for we have 
high authority to "Mark them which cause divisions among you, 
and avoid them." Much less can we acknowledge you as a 
"Bishop," having convicted you of being a "brawler," which 
Paul specifies as a disqualification for that office. Hence you 
will perceive that we cannot appreciate or accept your proposi- 
tion to receive from you the right hand of fellowship, though we 
reciprocate this token of our Christian regards to the ministers of 
the Presbyterian church in this city, who are not partakers with 
you of your evil deeds, because they have "another spirit" in 
them. So also our brethren of your denomination, and those of 
your own church in Eutaw-st., we still regard worthy of our es- 
teem and love; nor do we believe that you can succeed in utterly 
estranging their hearts, even by the caricature of our faith, our 
experience, or our conduct, into which your unguarded and mis- 
guided zeal has betrayed you. 

Finally, in taking my leave of you, Rev. Sir, whom I have 
never seen, and of whom I have no knowledge but by your book, 
I have a duty to you personally, which I would fain discharge 
before concluding this reply. For though I have been constrained 
to arraign you before the Christian public as an offender against 
both Christian courtesy and heathen morality, and publicly im- 
peach both your intelligence and candor ; yet, if haply I may 
"convert you from the error of your ways," I have been taught, 
that I may hope thus to "save your soul from death," and hide 
even "the* multitude of sins," of which I have convicted your book. 



35 

"It is the part of wisdom to be willing to be taught even by an 
enemy, how much more to heed the admonitions of a friend." 

Believe me, Rev. Sir, the private griefs and personal wrongs 
of which you complain on so many of your pages, as furnishing 
you the provocation for the censorious spirit and temper you have 
indulged, have no existence but in your imagination. The con- 
spiracy your disordered fancy has conjured up as existing among 
the Methodists in your neighborhood, against you and your 
charge, is but the dream of a distempered brain. And as to 
"proselyting" from your little flock, we have neither the motive 
nor the inclination to invade your sheepfold, nor would our 
ministry or people countenance the attempt to estrange any of 
your people either from your church or your sabbath school. Nor 
has there ever been on the part of the Methodists any effort to 
disparage, misrepresent, or detract from your merits, be they 
great or small, as a man, a Christian or a minister ; much less has 
there ever been heard a whisper against your salary, though of 
all these grievous offences you accuse us. 

Surely you must have been surrounded by "whisperers or back- 
biters,'' to whom you seem to have lent a ready ear, else your 
own common sense would have protected you from such morbid 
visions. Is it not wonderful that no such conflict has ever been 
engendered between the Methodists, and the very respectable 
pastors of the other Presbyterian churches of this city, neither of 
whom has ever encountered the plot against the peace of their 
respective charges, which you have strangely conjured up in 
relation to your church ? Can you conceive of any reason why 
you and your flock should be selected as the peculiar and exclu- 
sive object of our proselyting covetousness or sectarian jealousy ? 
Depend upon it, you have been the victim of delusion, and haunt- 
ed for years by a ghost which has led you to give 

"To airy nothing, a local habitation and a name." 

And so also of that terrible "tract on election left at your private 
residence on a Sabbath morning /" the Methodists of this city 
are guiltless of any agency in that grievous transaction, much 
less is the Tract Society or the General Conference implicated 
in the deed. I have already intimated what I suppose was the 
real source of that "personal insult and impudent challenge" 
which you impute to the Methodists. But suppose, Rev. Sir, that 
one of your flock were to perpetrate a similar outrage upon one 
of our ministry, by leaving "Bishop" Musgrave's "controversial 
tract on election at his door on a Sabbath morning !" would this 
be a justifiable "origin" for a volume of resentment against the 
whole Presbyterian church in the United States !" for an act, 
which, in the nature of the case, must have been an individual 
indiscretion ? And yet thus you have acted, and in the very title 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



36 002 208 205 ft 

of your book, you have violated even the dictates of good man- 
ners, for it implies that there is in the "Polity of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church," some hidden and vile iniquity which we are 
either too ignorant to know, or too depraved and dishonest to 
reveal ; and hence the propriety of your "Exposure !" 

And now let me ask you, Key. Sir, suppose it were even so, 
and you felt it your conscientious duty to make the disclosure, is 
your's the style to do good with? Is the spirit and language of 
your book any approximation to what is becoming in a Christian 
minister? What, think you, will be the impression made upon 
the minds of your readers, touching the character of a religion, 
which exhibits you to such, indulging a temper which is as far 
from the "spirit of Christ," as is that of a brawling politician or 
raving demagogue? Let reason and conscience answer. 

The limits to which I have restricted myself in this pamphlet, 
have precluded me from amplifying on any single point of your 
accusations, and constrained me wholly to omit some others, in 
which you are equally vulnerable. I am the more reconciled to 
this deficiency in my humble performance, by the hope that a 
more detailed defence against your book will be prepared, by 
another and an abler hand, to which this may be regarded as but 
a preface or forerunner. 

I feel it to be as much my special duty to reply to your book, 
as it was your special duty to write it ; and with my motives, — 
supremely important to myself, — I have every reason to be satis- 
fied, though with the manner in which I have discharged this 
duty, I confess myself far less content. Indeed, such is the vitu- 
perative style of your book, that, by contact with it, I may have 
been, at times, exceptionably severe, for "Happy is he that con- 
demneth not himself, in that thing which he alloweth." Neverthe- 
less, I feel that a calm refutation of some of the railing accusations 
of your volume would be criminal in me, professing to be set for 
the defence of the truth. But whatever others may judge of the 
severity of my manner, you cannot surely complain, for in con- 
trast with your book, I am grievously in fault. And you will 
remember that I write in self-defence, against an unjust and 
unprovoked volume of abuse which you have written against the 
church of which I am a member. 

Deeply as I have felt the injustice you have inflicted upon 
Methodism, my indignation has been vastly more excited by your 
numerous offences against the majesty of truth. For the former, 
I can forgive you, now that I have repelled it ; and for the latter, 
while I expose you, "more in sorrow than in anger," I can de- 
voutly pray, "Lord, lay not this sin to his charge." 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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